Transcript of John R Murray's talk

The John Murray Lecture 2007

Transcript of the talk by
John R Murray at the National Library of Scotland on 1 November
2007. John Murray's talk followed that of his wife, Virginia. Their
joint lecture was entitled: '50 Albemarle Street: Ledgers and
legends'.

What is it like to be a Murray?

When I first joined the Firm I remember standing in the hall at
Number 50 Albermarle Street. A visitor came in and when introduced
to me, asked what Darwin was like as an author. I answered, 'I am
afraid I don't know as it was my great, great, great, great
grandfather who was his publisher'. Of course this was a most
unsatisfactory reply and we both knew it. From then on I realised
that if you are a Murray you have to telescope all the generations
into one.

Not long after this I was asked what Livingstone was like. I
answered, adopting my new approach: 'He was a great friend of the
family and often came to visit us here at Number 50, but he could
be very tricky over the editing of his books. On one occasion he
was furious when our editor tried to polish his raw style, as
Virginia has mentioned.' This received full approval. It seemed to
be the right approach to take. Ever since, I have always spoken
about authors through the ages as if I were their specific
publisher.

David Livingstone's demands

Livingstone's demands on John Murray went well beyond what is
normally expected of an author (although you should bear in mind
that Byron asked John Murray II to arrange for his illegitimate
daughter, Allegra, to be buried in Harrow Church, and James Hogg,
'the Ettrick Shepherd', asked John Murray to find him a nice wife).
Livingstone, however, asked John Murray to arrange a music teacher
for his daughter in Paris and to send pocket money to her, and he
also asked Mrs Murray to give advice on what she should wear when
she came out of mourning for her mother.

These demands are not so surprising when you get to know the
nature of the Murrays' relationship with their authors.

Freya Stark

Freya Stark, the great Arabian traveller, all of whose books we
published and whose archive I inherited, was my godmother. I was
devoted to her but she could be amazingly demanding. She once asked
my father to send a hip bath out to her in the South Yemen by
diplomatic bag - no easy task.

On another occasion she asked me to take 12 rose bushes out to
the new house she was building in the foothills of the Dolomites.
Not only did I have to fetch them from Hillier's in Winchester but
I also had to smuggle them across the Italian border. 'Simple,'
said Freya, 'just put them under your dirty clothes in your
suitcase'. As if I would have dirty clothes with me when going out
to stay with her. But one must remember that she was a master
smuggler herself.

On another occasion she nearly killed my father when he was
attempting to teach her how to ride a Vespa in Asolo. She was fine
on a camel but suicidal on anything mechanical.

Close family friends

And then there was Osbert Lancaster, the cartoonist, illustrator
and architectural satirist, who was my younger sister's godfather.
Each evening after drawing his Pocket Cartoon for the 'Daily
Express' he came into Albemarle Street bringing all the Fleet
Street gossip with him. John Piper, the artist, who with John
Betjeman edited Murray's Architectural Guides and who designed the
famous stained glass window for the new Coventry Cathedral, was my
brother's godfather. And believe it or not Sir Francis Younghusband
who, in 1904, led the notorious mission to Llasa under the auspices
of Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of India, was my sister's godfather.
And just to get godparents out of my system, Layard the discoverer
of Nimrud and Nineveh was John Murray IV's brother Hallam's
godfather.

This is just to give you a taste of how Murray authors were so
often close friends of the family.

But another point of interest is how there seem to be links with
Murrays all over the world.

Dervla Murphy

A nice incident comes to mind when Dervla Murphy, that intrepid
traveller (her daughter was my father's goddaughter - for a long
time many people thought that he was her father!), was bicycling
from Kenya to South Africa via Uganda and Zimbabwe.

In the usual way, I supplied her with a letter of introduction
'To whom this may concern' on John Murray headed paper. When Dervla
was peddling through Uganda and it started getting dark, she
decided to stop at the next village to find somewhere to sleep. She
made for the largest hut that she reasoned must belong to the
chief. In fact it turned out to be a small Livingstone museum. In
the centre she found a cabinet displaying a copy of Livingstone's
'Missionary Travels' opened at the title page. Just as she was
looking at it a man approached her. She immediately took out my
letter of introduction and handed it to him. One look and he burst
out with excitement and pointed at the 'Missionary Travels' in the
cabinet with 'John Murray, Albemarle Street, London' on the title
page, and then turned to the notepaper with 'John Murray, Albemarle
Street, London' on it. The villagers were immediately summoned to
meet Livingstone's publisher (I should mention that Dervla was
often mistaken for a man).

Dervla, like Freya, could also be very demanding at times.
Trying to track down typewriter ribbons for her manual typewriter
that had long been discontinued but which she refused to be parted
from, was a normal occurrence. However to receive an email from her
somewhere in the middle of recently war-torn Serbia with a request
to track down a large-scale map of the area for her did pose
problems. Finding the right large-scale map was the first task and
then getting it out to her in Pristina with no definite address
demanded exceptional resource. One had to bear in mind that Dervla
was bicycling through an area scattered with unexploded land mines
so a good map was essential. Somehow I succeeded.

Then there was Dervla's habit of using the back of her old
typescript pages on which to type her new book. She did not cross
out the old page so often I would find myself reading pages from
earlier books spread through the typescript of her new offering. I
do think that some of her published works contain a number of pages
from other works! And more often than not she typed off the edge of
the paper because the bell on her typewriter was no longer working
and I had to guess the missing words.

And then there was Noni Jabavu, the first Bantu to be published
in English. She used to send me requests for plush prune nail
varnish and the like. I had to seek the advice of Murray
secretaries for this.

All this is merely to give you some idea of what it is like to
be a Murray.

Guardians of Byron's reputation

But now to Byron. (It is impossible for a Murray to escape from
Byron.) Throughout almost two centuries since his death in 1824 and
for some years before, the Murrays have been the guardians of his
reputation.

However, the excitement this year is the publication for the
first time of 'The Letters of John Murray', outstandingly edited by
Andrew Nicholson. This volume reveals the true nature of John
Murray II's relationship with Byron and shows this correspondence
to be one of the great correspondences of its kind.

It is clear from it that Byron depended on Murray as much as
Murray depended on Byron. The letters cover a wide range of
subjects many quite outside literature. Byron's even contain
graphic accounts of his latest conquests while in Venice. Tommy
Moore observed 'How strange it is that a nobleman should address
his publisher on matters so unconnected with literature'. On
another occasion he observes 'Murray showed me a letter which Lord
Byron had written him, which is to me unaccountable, except from
the most ungovernable vanity …'

What John Murray's letters to Lord Byron show is that John
Murray II was quite up to the challenge of corresponding with
Byron. He keeps Byron informed of what is happening in England,
what books are being read, what friends are up to and parries
Byron's barbs with skill.

Behind all this is the shrewd publisher advising Byron as an
editor, and planning the production and publication schedules of
his books. He chases Byron up to produce more verse to strengthen
his Autumn list (just like any publisher today) and sometimes takes
liberties in adding material to, for example, a canto of Childe
Harold, to 'bulk it out'. In addition he sends to Byron tooth
powders, magnesia, gunpowder and on one occasion Byron asked for
two bull dogs but after Murray had found them, cancelled the order.
One must realise that from the time Byron left for the Continent in
1816, John Murray was his chief link with England.

The Disraelis and John Murray

Now I plan to look briefly at an aspect of the relationship
between the Disraelis and John Murray that is often overlooked.

Isaac D'Israeli had known John Murray II since 1795 when Murray
took over the business and Isaac acted as his literary adviser.
When Murray held his literary salons and dinners in Number 50,
Isaac was introduced to those literary people such as Byron, Scott
and Southey about whom he had written in 'Curiosities of
Literature' and his other books.

Benjamin Disraeli, as Isaac's son, was naturally introduced to
this circle at an early age and Murray was so taken by him that he
asked him to advise on a manuscript before he was even 16. It seems
that the distinguished publisher and businessman was already
bewitched by this young man and for a while he acted as a kind of
father-figure and patron to him. It is well known that later
publisher and future Prime Minister fell out for a while but this
is a charming early vignette of them together. Early on Benjamin
modelled himself on Byron, which must have appealed to John Murray,
and his father employed Byron's gondolier, Tita, after Byron's
death.

I could follow this up with my ancestor's close friendship with
Gladstone but instead and aptly I plan to move on to the early 20th
century and to trespass on Virginia's territory.

Queen Victoria's letters

It was when the post-1920 book files were returned from our
warehouse to Albemarle Street that we came upon seven thick files
marked 'The Letters of Queen Victoria'. We showed these to an
Australian academic, Yvonne Ward, who was researching her thesis on
how Queen Victoria was interpreted to the public after her death.
Her excitement was enormous, for here was the story of the
preparation and publication of Queen Victoria's correspondence -
the first time the correspondence of an English sovereign had ever
appeared in print. Here John Murray is shown exerting his
publishing skills to the full.

These files begin in 1904 and show how Lord Esher, that
'eminence grise', A C Benson, the brother of the archbishop and
author of 'Land of Hope and Glory', Lord Knollys, Edward VII's
private secretary, and John Murray achieved a publishing first that
at times seemed impossible. Lord Esher, who moved freely in royal
circles, had the idea of publishing the Queen's correspondence. He
chose A C Benson as editor, who was a master at Eton at the time
and so usefully close to Windsor. As publisher he decided on John
Murray, who had already published the speeches of Prince Albert and
the elephant folio of the Albert Memorial for Queen Victoria and
who was A C Benson's publisher.

The problem of selecting, editing and printing the
correspondence - initially in three volumes - was horrendous.
Princess Beatrice, literary executor of Queen Victoria and known as
'Babe' by her family, had her own views on how the Queen should be
portrayed, and Edward VII, who had to approve the proofs, seemed to
have little interest in reading them and was often out of the
country in Baden Baden, Marienbad or elsewhere when most needed.
Lord Esher had a devious habit of making changes that appeared to
come from the King when they were in fact his own.

No sooner was volume one in proof than Princess Beatrice decided
to reveal additional correspondence to be included. John Murray
then had to instruct the printer to insert this, in already
standing type. A new set of proofs was then produced. Edward VII
was given them and after holding on to them for nine months
insisted on a number of cuts. Each time something was cut out
Murray had to try to get Benson to find something of equivalent
length in chronological sequence to insert to save the printer from
having to move all the type up. If letters were inserted the
procedure was reversed.

More often than not the printer had to move the type up and down
to accommodate these additions and deletions. At a late stage this
became even more difficult and expensive and time consuming as the
index had to be amended as well. Each person involved in checking
and amending the proofs - there were six - was instructed to make
their suggestions and corrections in a different coloured pencil to
keep them distinct.

Esher, Princess Beatrice and Edward VII all had their own
different ideas of how Queen Victoria should be presented. However,
they agreed on one point - that she should be seen as Queen and
Empress, and nothing that showed her as a woman, or as mother of
her children, should appear. Passages that were too private or
potentially scandalous or trivial were to be cut out, but everyone
had different ideas as to what these were. In the end so many
letters had extracts removed in them that it was decided not to use
ellipses as these would, as Lord Esher said, 'destroy the readers'
confidence'.

When the first two volumes were in type (1,200 printed pages)
there was not sufficient type to set volume three, even though
Murray had already bought additional type for the printer. Only
when volume one was 'stereod' could the type be dished and volume
three composed. One has to bear in mind at this point that French
and German editions were to be published simultaneously and the
volumes had to be reset in the USA to establish local copyright.
This all added to the extraordinary complexity of this whole
operation.

Wealth of research possibilities

Throughout, John Murray had to oversee the project and somehow
keep everything moving. This proved a nightmare and it was he who
bore the brunt of the professional and financial anxiety. However,
the project had attached to it enormous prestige and ultimately
both John Murray IV and V were knighted by the King for their
services.

This whole episode shows an interesting aspect of the archive
and one that I find totally absorbing. It reveals the whole
picture, in its most complex form, from concept of a book through
the editing process into production including the actual printing
problems and then to final publication.

When you bear in mind that the John Murray Archive includes all
the ledgers and back-up material to the books Murray published and
over 150,000 manuscript items, you get some idea of the wealth of
research possibilities contained in it.

But you have had enough of me.

I would like to finish by thanking you all for listening so
patiently to us.

Bear in mind that I had to follow someone who knows more about
the archive than anyone else and has lived with it for so long.

And I'm going to arrange for her picture to go there! [John
Murray points to a wall.]